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Pandemic time has made us use the Internet even more than before. The period of home confinement has been filled with remote work and entertainment offered by the network. There are also many indications that home office will become a permanent practice in many companies. But let’s track how we used the Internet in March, April and May?
According to statistics that appeared in an analysis conducted by Polish Internet Research, by far March was a winner in terms of Internet use. At the time, 28.6 million Poles used it, including 14.6 million women and 14.1 million men. On average, we spent more than 2 hours on the Internet, collectively making an unimaginable number of page views – more than 61 billion.
In March, 24 million Poles connected to the Internet using laptops and personal computers. The rest of the users were those who chose mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Growing e-commerce
During the pandemic, we repeatedly used the Internet for work, video conferencing and chatting with friends. However, the restrictions of the shutdown caused Polish commerce to move to the online area. It thus became a golden time for e-commerce in the broadest sense. According to the analysis, such sites could see a 13 percent increase in the last week of March compared to the last week of February, and a 24 percent increase compared to the week of March 9-15.
Interestingly, we also very often observed and participated in online auctions. In the last week of March, the number of views of sites of this type increased by 19%.
Such a wide development of the e-commerce area makes domain maintenance and hosting services, such as those offered by Kru.co.uk, very important. Sites must always work flawlessly, especially with the large number of customers who use them. Equally important are public clouds, offered, for example, by ITH, which are perfect for demanding businesses. Many companies use them as an additional database server or a place dedicated to storing backup copies. With such solutions, companies are always prepared for all sorts of problems.
Government services
March definitely became a landmark month in the number of page views and users of www.gov.pl, which collects all government websites. Among other things, it published information about the coronavirus and – on subpages – about the latest projects, such as the anti-crisis shield.
At the beginning of March, the government website was visited by more than 2 million users, generating 6 million page views. During the week of March 9-15, when the Prime Minister announced restrictions on the operation of stores and public institutions, the number of visitors rose to 5.1 million, and the weekly balance of page views reached more than 27 million. Due to such good results, www.gov.pl was ranked 11th in the TOP 20 list of domains with the highest number of Internet users in March, eventually reaching 12.6 million visitors and 108.6 page views in the month.
Increasing popularity of VOD
In April, one could see an increased interest in VOD services. This was a natural consequence of the limitations of social life. From the second half of the month, more users watched movies and series, but by far their record number was recorded on April 22 – 2.2 million people to be exact. According to the data, after three weeks, Internet user activity began to decline.
Remote learning
Electronic school has definitely turned the lives of many families upside down. Education-related sites have therefore gained considerable popularity, especially electronic diaries and tools for teachers to communicate with students. Since mid-March, the number of users has steadily increased, hitting a record high of up to 9.4 million. In April, it continued at a high level. Educational websites were then visited by more than 7 million people daily. The only moment of decline was the Easter holidays.
Poles are interested in business
Comparing May 2019 to this year, it can be seen that this year Internet users were more interested in the topics of business, finance and law. Every day, the pages dedicated to them were visited by an average of 4.5 million people, compared to 3.7 million last year. The number of page views generated in this way was almost 22 million (13.7 million in 2019).
Decline in tourism
The state of the epidemic in Poland and around the world has effectively blocked the travel industry. Related sites and apps recorded fewer users and page views. The daily number of users in May 2020 was 1.5 million (last year it was more than 2 million). A much larger difference appears in the case of daily page views. This year it was less than 6 million, while just a year ago it was more than 14 million.
During our time at home, we focused not only on remote work, but also on online entertainment, such as a wide range of movies and series on VOD platforms. We also regularly shopped online, contributing to the further development of e-commerce. On more than one occasion, we also visited government websites, checking information on health or projects such as the crisis shield. Increased interest in financial, business and legal topics also became a natural consequence. Therefore, it can be concluded that during this difficult period we were able to find time for effective remote work, further education and rest.
The role of the Internet in our lives continues to grow. There are many indications that this trend will not change, so we encourage you to take advantage of our offer and tailor the Internet to your own individual needs.